German Court Decides: One Cannot Be Charged for 'Accidental' File Sharing

Legal p2p related news come abundantly every week. Apparently, a German court has ruled that accidental file sharing does not qualify as a crime.

The case was about a man using a p2p file sharing program, not knowing that all the downloaded content was put by default into a shared folder. This was, in fact, the “detail” that saved him from an unfavourable court decision.

However, it’s not like this case will set a norm in this country – one of the reasons would be the lack of precedential power of court decisions. Let’s not forget also that most cases of copyright infringement in Germany are not criminal ones (as the case in question, where the content dictated it) but civil cases.

Besides these facts, and considering how most of copyright cases are currently handled, this kind of news where a court understands the whole picture and implications when charging a person for "accidental infringement" can only be a good one.